


The day life started

by Mere_dyth



Category: Marvel (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-02
Updated: 2015-01-02
Packaged: 2018-03-05 00:13:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3097817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mere_dyth/pseuds/Mere_dyth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve was breathing, but was he living</p>
            </blockquote>





	The day life started

It was a tiny little thing. At first he thought it was a trick of the light, or a smut of dirt or speck of dust on the mirror.

But no, it was there. Day after day he checked, and still it was there.

He wasn't entirely sure what it meant. It could just be an aberration, a random variable in something so set and fixed that variation didn't seem possible.

But one day, while he was casually checking again, just to be sure, there was another!

A closer check and sure enough, there were actually five, all lying there innocent and unaware of the soul-shattering change they were wreaking in him.

He knew now he had to know, had to be sure that it meant what he thought it meant. So he went to a friend, someone he could trust, who also knew enough about him, about his special condition in life, to understand - and who also had the wherewithal to say with certainty what this might mean. 

And Bruce looked, and nodded, and frowned, and took a tiny snip of silver thread to sample along with his other tests, and wandered off with his head down and his eyes focussed somewhere into the past.

When he came back, was it a day later, a week? Time was blurring around this one point, this crux, this fulcrum on which his life was about to pivot. But Bruce came back, looking sombre.

Said, with a hand laid gently on his shoulder, as if that could brace his body against the truth to come, yes, my friend. You really are ageing. I'm sorry - the serum worked so hard keeping your cells alive and protected during all those years in the ice, that where they might have otherwise given you a life of Asgardian duration, it would appear that now they can only give you the strengths and protections they offer for the course of what most people would consider a normal lifespan.

His eyes fell, hiding, ashamed, as tears welled and spilled down his cheeks. He felt that reassuring hand tighten on his skin, but the warmth was eclipsed by the cold rush of oxygen as his lungs inflated, hitched, and pushed out a broken sob.

I'm so sorry, his friend whispered again. But it broke at the end as his head started to shake, at first one shift, then with building momentum, until he thought the world would shake from side to side with it.

And finally he looked up, eyes bright with tears, but they weren't sad, weren't tormented or broken. They were bright with joy, a joy so overwhelming he thought he would shatter apart on the sharp edges of it as it swelled through his every cell.

Please, don't be sorry, he said, in a voice made fragile with new emotion. I've died and lived again, and known the pain of losing everyone and everything familiar in my life. The greatest gift I've ever received, in a life of truly remarkable gifts, has been this news. To know I can live now, really live, I can care, and love, and feel again, and not forever fear to be left behind again.

The day Steve Rogers started to really live, was the day he was told he was going to die.

**Author's Note:**

> I've given a ridiculous amount of time to considering how the serum worked (and will spare you my theory on conversion of light energy to matter and conservation of mass). I've also thought long and hard about why we would wish relative immortality on Steve, who has already had to leave everyone he loves behind once.
> 
> So this idea about how it might be possible for Steve to have a 'normal' lifespan and still be Cap has been with me for a while. Today I decided to write it.
> 
> If you read this far, thank you.


End file.
